Salmon planning to float his tech distribution group CMS

CMS Distribution distributes IT equipment such as networking and data storage solutions for leading manufacturers such as Toshiba,
Sandisk, Symantec and Red Hat and counts 3,000 resellers among its customers

Mayo businessman Frank Salmon is planning to float his technology distribution firm CMS within the next four years as he aims to increase its sales to over €700m by 2020.

"We have a vision to more than double our headcount and turnover by 2020, to £500m (€715m) revenue and 500 employees, from £175m (€250m) and 220 people today," he said. "Though we grew our sales by 30pc last year, we will need acquisitions to deliver that, and we'll do a couple over the coming years and then look at floating. If we floated today, we'd leave too much value on the table. Being private allows us a long-term position - and we'll continue to get even better at what we do while we scale up," he said.

CMS Distribution, which he bought and turned around at the age of just 25, distributes IT equipment such as networking and data storage solutions for leading manufacturers such as Toshiba, Sandisk, Symantec and Red Hat and counts 3,000 resellers among its customers.

Salmon owns 85pc of the company which is debt free and booked a profit of €6.2m last year. He is eyeing European expansion through a series of buyouts, having purchased a rival for €10m last year. "The kind of acquisition we're looking for is a business that would create a step change for us and enhance our value to our customers. We're scoping out the market ourselves, rather than appointing advisors or others to do that," he added.